Animal Cruelty In Korea,
Page 1
Every year Korea kills millions of dogs for their skins and food.

It is heartbreaking to watch dogs cruelly
mistreated in Korea. Cruelties inflicted upon dogs by Korean dog meat
producers are notorious worldwide. In addition, dogs are also being
abused in puppy mills and in municipal-run shelters for stray animals.
Dogs are not treated as living creatures in Korea. Instead, they are
seen as lucrative sources of income for dog farmers, breeders and
government-assigned shelter directors.

Dogs await a painfull death. Ctsy: all-creatures.org

Hence, it is not very shocking to find even Korean
Government officers actively participating in cruelty to animals.
The following two cases show how the Korean Government regards and
treats dogs.

The “owner” of these dogs is a typical
dog meat vendor, having run a dog farm in
Korea for over 10 years even while having no property rights to
the farm site.
When officials from Incheon’s local government visited the
farm to begin land reclamation proceedings, they found five to six
dogs were crammed in each cage,
where they could barely move their limbs. Piles of feces measuring
over one meter in height littered the property, and the bodies of
dead dogs were stacked in freezers. Many of them were young puppies
who died from disease. Unfortunately, these miserable conditions
are commonplace at “dog farms” across Korea.

Dogs for sale to eat korea. Ctsy: all-creatures.org

In May 2005, the dogs were relocated by the government
officers. Unfortunately, the conditions at the new location were
even more horrific. Locked up in small pens, the dogs were left
on asphalt and exposed to rain and snow. The officers did not install
shelter from the wind nor roofs, because to them dogs are more like
canned products stacked on shelves than living creatures. The dogs
had to endure the harsh elements of last winter in this horrible
environment, and many of them did not survive.

Dogs waiting to die Korea. Ctsy: all-creatures.org

When animal protection groups visited the site in
March 2006, they noticed a number of injured dogs. Due to fights
among them, which is not uncommon on dog farms, some dogs had no
ears or missing tails, and some were limping. Living on asphalt
without drainage, it is little wonder that decayed food and even
their own feces was caked on their fur. Infected with scabies and
other skin diseases, their skin was rotting with pus all over their
bodies. The only food available, if it can be called food, was decomposing
food waste. Cannibalism was occurring here and there, and new-born
puppies were being eaten by starving dogs.

In November 2005, officials from the local government
of Incheon demolished a dog farm in Sankok-dong, by an administrative
order, and relocated the dogs in order to build a park on the farm
site. According to the farm owner, some 100 dogs were killed during
the process, in which heavy equipment was used to destroy their
original cages. Officers forced the dogs into cages, where they
could hardly breathe, with their necks and backs bent over. Some
dogs were locked up in wooden boxes with no sunshine or ventilation.